Terminal Lance #520 “The Birth of a Lifer”

Seeing your friends reenlist is always a sad moment. On one hand, you want to be supportive of their decision, even though you know it’s bad; quite like watching your best friend get engaged to that horrible woman everyone hates and knows is terrible for him. On the other, you know that you’ll probably never see them again, and they’ll have to skip starting that irreverent veteran T-shirt/coffee company you were planning in favor of their new career.

Worse yet, you know they’ll eventually turn to the dark side of the Corps. No longer content with the goings on of the Lance Corporal, they soon crave power and malice. You watch their souls slowly disintegrate as they become NCO’s, and then Staff NCO’s. You watch from Facebook as they proudly pin on rocker after rocker, knowing full well they’ve become the very thing they swore to hate when you were all young.

It’s sad, but it happens all the time, and all you can really do is sit back and watch.

If you know someone who might be thinking about reenlisting, tell them that the Post 9/11 GI Bill is totally a great alternative.